| Wesley Snipes, born 1962 is an American actor.
Biography:
Wesley Snipes was born on July, 31, 1962 in Orlando, Florida. Snipes passed High School for the Performing Arts with his subjects being dance, vocal and scenic speech. He studied at the State University of New York at Purchase, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree. After completing university, he acted in advertisements and played in theaters. In 1987, he had an opportunity to appear in Michael Jackson's clip “Bad”, directed by Martin Scorsese.
Later on, Snipes played in the comedy film “Major League” (1989), action-film “King of New York” (1990) and the drama by Spike Lee “Mo’ Better Blues” (1990).
In 1991, Snipes played the role of a drug-lord in the film “New York” and “The Water Dance”. Both the roles were highly appreciated and in 1992, he appeared in his first high budget film “Passenger 57”. The comedy film “White Men Can’t Jump”, released in the same year, was a huge success.
In 1993, Snipes played along with Sean Connery in “Rising Sun” and with Sylvester Stallone in "Demolition Man” and after three years, with Robert De Niro in “The Fan”. In 1997, Wesley Snipes received the best actor “Volpi Cup” award at the “Venice Film Festival” for his role in the melodrama “One Night Stand” with Nastassja Kinski.
Additional facts:
For a long time the actor has been practicing the Afro-Brazilian martial art Capoeira. He is fluent in oriental martial arts.
On April 24, 2008, the Federal City Court of Ocala, Florida, issued the verdict of “guilty” against the Hollywood actor Wesley Snipes. The court stated that Snipes evaded tax payment for three years (1999-2001) and as a result, owes more than $15 million to the State Treasury. Wesley Snipes pleaded guilty and tried to avoid a real term. Before the sentence was pronounced, he offered to issue three checks of $5 million to the State Treasury in exchange for lenience. The federal public prosecutors accepted the checks and handed them to the Finance Ministry. However, this did not help in exempting Wesley from the punishment. He received a three year prison term, which is the maximum punishment for tax evasion in the USA.
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